Episode Transcript
[00:00:06] And so my main point for you guys today is simply this. God is good and he wants what is best for you. Pure and simple. God is good and he wants what is best for you. Back in my youth pastor days, I used to say this was the absolute fundamental first piece of theology that a Christian has to understand in order to understand the gospel. God exists, he's good, and he wants what is best for you. But in our cultural moment, I really think this fundamental truth of Christianity has actually become a little bit troublesome. More and more and more, the research bears out that people are really open to the idea of God being real and God existing and God even being personal and intermingling with our lives. But this idea of his goodness and his knowing best for us, right, like that's, that's an interesting one that is increasingly difficult for our cultural moment to accept. If God is so good, then how can he possibly be the God of the Bible? Is the question many ask. If God is so good, why does he restrict us? Why does he care about how we live our lives or what we believe? Why does he care about our ethics? If he is the God of the universe, shouldn't he be bigger than that?
[00:01:27] Shouldn't He? Why would he care about the little things we do with our little lives? If he's so big and powerful and if he's so personable and so kind, shouldn't he respect our individual autonomy to make our own decisions and live our own lives?
[00:01:44] Those are good questions. Those are important questions to consider.
[00:01:50] If God is good, then why does he seem so restrictive and at times even petty? To answer this, we're going to go to one of my favorite parables in Matthew chapter 13. If you want to go ahead and turn there in your bibles. Matthew, chapter 13, we have house Bibles around the room. If you don't have one with you, we really believe and the importance of access to God's word here at Emmanuel Fellowship Church. So if you're hanging out with us today and you don't own a Bible, strongly encourage you to take one of the house Bibles home or talk to one of our pastors. Let us get you a nicer one. But while you're turning there, Matthew, chapter 13, let me pray for us. And we're going to look at one of my favorite texts in scripture. Jesus, thank you so much for this morning. Thank you for how you love us. Thank you for how you care for us, for how you make a way for us. Jesus, God, we ask today that as we take a few minutes to dig into your word and to consider aspects of your character that are really fundamental to our relationship with you. We pray, Holy Spirit, that you would be our disciples. Remind us of truth. Draw us back to the reality of who you are. Convict us, Lord, where we need conviction. Challenge us where we need challenge. But Lord, let all of us leave here today having heard from you the way our heart actually needs to hear from you. Jesus, we ask these things in your name. Amen. Okay, Matthew 13, we're going to start in verse 44. This is in the middle of what's called the Bay of Parables sermon where Jesus delivers a whole bunch of parables back to back. In verse 44 we read this.
[00:03:28] The kingdom of heaven is like treasure buried in a field that a man found and reburied. Then in his joy, he goes and sells everything he has and buys that field again. The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls. When he found one priceless pearl, he went and sold everything he had and bought it. And this is the word of the Lord for us today. This is a relatively well known text and a short one in fact in our study of Matthew. This is weird timing wise. I preached this text like essentially one year ago, like just about 12 months ago. So if you are a super nerd, you may see familiarity and how we preach this today. But just in case, on the very, and I understand guys, minuscule chance that you don't keep all of my banger sermons on tap mentally at all times on the, on the very small chance that that's the case, I am going to go ahead and teach through this again. Just, you know, just, just for those in the room who haven't paying attention, I'm excited about this text. There's a couple things I'm going to point out as we go through this. Jesus used parables as one of his primary forms of teaching. And there's a couple interpretive lenses that we can use to help us understand Jesus's parables a little better. So I'm going to point out a couple of those as we walk through through this. Okay, so the first one is this. It's really important to note that normally we should be very careful not to be too detailed in our look at Jesus's parables. Jesus does not didn't write these for reading. He wrote these to say out loud. They're meant to be short, pithy stories that prove a singular or sometimes two points, right? They're meant to be simple. And so if you start digging into all the details and assigning meaning and strategy and interconnection the way you would with maybe like an allegorical book like Pilgrim's Progress or CS Lewis's stuff, Right? Like, you'll miss it. Now, this one is a little bit of an exception to that because Jesus gives these two short parables back to back. And so they're almost. They're almost identical. They're very, very close. But there is one specific key difference in them. And I think Jesus delivers these two parables back to back because he wants us to notice and note the difference between the two parables. Right? And so we're gonna. I'm gonna draw that out for us as we discuss this. But let's look at these two stories in turn, see what we see about Christ and his kingdom. And then I'll note the contrast bit at the beginning. So first we have the buried treasure. This is a really short story of a guy who's walking through a finds buried treasure. Now, one of our interpretive lenses for understanding Jesus's parables is to ask what aspects of the story would have been normal to the original hearers and what aspects of the story would have been strange to the original hearers. This is because Jesus often puts the meaning of his parables at the intersection of the mundane and normal and the absurd and strange. Right? Now we miss a lot of that because all of Jesus's stories are strange to us because we're not first century Palestinians. Right? So let's put ourselves a little bit in the context. And what we learn with that is that this, a story about finding buried treasure, was actually a really normal story back then in our day of federally insured banks. Right. Buried treasures are the stuff we keep in pirate stories. But this is actually a common enough experience in Jesus's day that there were established laws in Palestine governing how you handled buried treasure. The reason for this was this. Palestine was a violent and unstable region for generation upon generation. And so folk learned the subtle art of burying their valuables when they thought armies and warlords would be sweeping through the land. The hope was that you would survive whatever current conflict of the month was going on and then go and uncover your stuff later. But it was such a tumultuous region for so long that oftentimes, by the time the dust settled, a lot of the inhabitants had been killed. And so no one came back to claim their treasure. And after generations upon generations and land and property lines moving and empires coming and going, there were a good amount of buried treasures hidden around Palestine. It was A very real thing. Add into that the fact that that they didn't have an understanding of trespassing the way we do. Personally owned property was full of public pathways. And so people wandered through each other's property on their way to and fro all the time. You mix those two things together and what you end up with is finding buried treasure happened. It was a thing. A thing that really happened. Now, what's interesting about our story where Jesus's parable gets a little strange is that in our story, this man has so much joy over finding this treasure that he buries it again and immediately goes and liquidates all of his assets. He sells everything he owns so that he can buy the field and secure the treasure. Here's why that's strange.
[00:08:56] That's not how it worked back then. The law was finders keepers. It didn't matter if it was your property or not unless you had been hired by the owner of the property to survey the property. If you were out wandering around in good faith and you found a treasure, it was your treasure. The only reason we can possibly think of of why this guy would act the way he did is that the treasure was so great that he wanted to make sure there was no confusion. There was not even a chance of anything.
[00:09:28] This is a weird little moment here, but essentially what Jesus is kind of pointing at is this treasure is so ludicrously valuable that this man doesn't want to chance anything possibly messing up his claim. So he buries the treasure, buys the field, and unearths it again to enjoy it. The text tells us he had to sell everything. He had to get that treasure. That treasure was apparently worth so much that this man was able to sell off everything he owned with joy at the thought of the treasure awaiting him on the other side of the sacrifice. They'll put that next to the story of the precious pearl. In this parable, we're told of a merchant who went out in search of a valuable pearl. When he finds it, it's so expensive that he has to sell everything he owns to get it again. This is not a strange story. Initially, pearls were very valuable in this day and age, before synthetic and farm pearls, and merchants often specialized in certain valuables they knew a lot about. It makes sense that a particular merchant would be out and about hunting for good investments. What's strange about this story is that in this parable, Jesus seems to imply that this merchant intends to keep this pearl.
[00:10:49] That's where it gets a little weird. He's out hunting, he's doing his business. But in this particular one, he finds he's so struck by its majesty, by its beauty, that he doesn't see it as investment. He doesn't see it as stock, as an item to flip and make money. He sees it as a treasure to own and he's happy to liquidate every penny he has to obtain it. It's interesting. It's interesting, interesting because, you know. And then this is where we go back to the differences, right? There's a couple key differences between these two parables that I think is worth us noting. First off, the man who found the treasure was not looking for treasure. He was out wandering around and he stumbled upon it. The merchant was out searching. Now, both men had to sell what they had to get the treasure. But think about this difference. The man with the buried treasure, his joy, let him sell all he had for the treasure because presumably that treasure was enough for him to live off, plus more. But the merchant, on the other hand, he couldn't have his fortune and his treasure. He went looking for it and when he found it, he sold all he had to get the pearl. He would have had to sell the pearl to get money again. Instead. There's something about having that treasure that is enough for the merchant.
[00:12:17] It's an interesting difference there, right? One is looking, one isn't. One gets the treasure and just lives off of it. The other one gets the treasure and just keeps it marbles at it.
[00:12:28] One last interpretive lens for us to think about is this. I think it's always helpful. This isn't always the case in every single parable, but in the majority of Jesus's parables, it's really helpful to start by saying, what would this parable mean if Christ was the main character? And then to go through it again and say, what would it mean if the church was the main character? Again, not always applicable, but more often than not. And so let's think about that for a moment. What would this parable or these two parables mean if we started with Christ as the main character? That's where this text begins to get really powerful. If Christ is the main character of these parables, then we have to ask, what treasure would so grab his heart that he would give up everything to have it?
[00:13:13] As this question brings us to an absolutely amazing gospel truth. If we consider Jesus's ministry, if we consider the way he spoke, the way he treated people, the way he chose to live his life, the way he chose to die his death, then we are left with the only answer which Is this. We are the treasure that Jesus seeks.
[00:13:35] That's not his bride, his church, his creation, humanity. If Jesus is the man in the field and the merchant on the hunt, then that means that God is willing to pay a price to have you.
[00:13:53] Come on, Church.
[00:13:55] That's nuts. It's nuts because of this. How the heck are you? No offense, but you so valuable that Jesus is going to pay any cost to have you?
[00:14:11] I mean, what do we bring to the table for Jesus Christ, the God of the universe, who created the heavens, who holds reality in his hand? What do you bring to the table for him that makes you worth having?
[00:14:26] I don't say this to be mean, but we can all be honest for a moment, right? Nothing.
[00:14:33] Nothing. What do we bring to the table? Not much. And yet his love for us is so deep that we still have immense value to him.
[00:14:48] I'm going to show you a picture of one of my treasures in real life. And listen, I talked about this with Deb before church. Today is Star wars day. You guys know that, right? Yeah. May the Fourth be with you. Happy Star Wars Day. I spent so much time looking for an appropriate Star wars meme to put in this sermon. I couldn't get there, guys. I couldn't get there. And, you know, I had to follow the leading of the sphere. But to make up for it, I did want to include a Marvel meme really quick. And so before I show you a picture of my treasure, it reminded me of the scene from Thor. Behold my stuff. Oh, okay. Sorry we had to go there. No shame, no judgment. This is a safe space. You guys love me. When I was a kid, slash, now as an adult, still, I loved Pokemon. And when I say I love Pokemon, I mean, like, drove my parents nuts. Loved Pokemon. I had all the things. I had all the things, guys, including the cards.
[00:15:45] And those of you who have parented children at any time in the last 25 years, you know what I'm talking about. The cards. The Pokemon cards. Gambling for children, right? You spend $5, you buy these little packs of cards that are nonsense, and yet somehow they're so important. They're so sacred. Yeah, listen, it's a thing, okay? I was super into the cards. A whole chunk of my childhood was defined by Pokemon and Pokemon cards. And one card in particular. This is a picture right here. I still have this of my Charizard card. Yeah. And listen, those of you who know what you're looking at right now, you know. You know, guys, I had a legit, in real life, Willy Wonka Moment when little nine year old me was in slacker cities and games and I bought the pack of cards and I opened them right there at the counter and I pulled out a Charizard and went, I got a Charizard. Adults in the room offered to buy it off of me. They were like, that kid got a charizard. Hey kid, I'll buy that. Like it was like legit Willy Wonka moment, right? It was like, yeah, get away from me. I still have this card. It is precious to me.
[00:16:56] It is in its little sleeve in my bedroom. Like I was 10 when I got this. Kids would literally ride their bikes to my neighborhood from other neighborhoods to offer me trades for my Charizard card. Like it became legendary among San Jose neighborhood in 1997, right?
[00:17:17] It's wonderful. Now here's the problem. Here's the problem.
[00:17:21] I was 10 when I got this card. So I destroyed it because that's what 10 year olds do with little pieces of shiny cardboard, right? I played cards with it, I put it in decks, I showed it to all my friends, scratched it up, Bennett ruined it. All of those things. All of those things. But now all the kids who are collecting Pokemon cards in 1997 are adults and work in their careers and have jobs and for whatever reason, this card in particular is worth ludicrous amounts of money. Ludicrous amounts of money. There's a company called psa. You can ship your comic, your comic books and cards off to them. They grade them, they seal them, encase them in plastic and send them back and tell you 1 through 10 how mint condition your card is, right? If you have this 1997 shadowless holographic Charizard Base L1, and it's a PSA 10.
[00:18:15] I'm not exaggerating with you right now. One sold on eBay about two weeks ago for $50,000.
[00:18:26] Mine, mine is worth about 30 bucks because I was 10 when I had it. And you shouldn't give things that will someday be worth $50,000 to 10 year old boys. That's pretty much just a normal rule of life. Here's the thing, guys.
[00:18:45] Why would anyone on earth pay that much money for a little bit of cardboard with some ink on it? That's nothing.
[00:18:55] That's nothing. That should not be worth that money. It isn't worth that money. It's tree pulp and ink, right?
[00:19:05] And yet, and yet, worth and value are two different things, right?
[00:19:12] Value gets assigned to something based on what people are willing to give for it and for whatever reason. Right now, in 2025, a PSA 10 mint Charizard with no shadow on the side of the card asks $50,000, even though it's a little bit of cardboard and some ink, and that's crazy. That's nuts. And yet there are people who absolutely see that value in that piece of cardboard. Because you measure value by what someone is willing to pay for something.
[00:19:42] You measure it that way. That's how. That's how we do it in this case. In the case of our text, our value. Your value as a human being became terrifyingly vast when Christ gave his very life for us.
[00:20:01] Your value skyrocketed because the God of the universe said, this is what I want and this is what I will pay for it.
[00:20:12] As. That's hard to fathom.
[00:20:15] That's why as a pastor, when I talk to you guys from the pulpit, I call you beloved. Because as your pastor, I never want you to forget the truth that you are the beloved, the God of the universe.
[00:20:27] This is how you were seen. This is how you were cared for. You.
[00:20:32] You are loved by God.
[00:20:36] You're beloved of him. I know that in a space like this, many of us, we identify ourselves with all sorts of things. Maybe it's your job, your education, your passion, your hobby. I've got news for you. No matter how amazing those things may be, they will fail you.
[00:20:56] Your job and your career won't last.
[00:20:59] You'll get laid off. You'll wake up one morning and realize you're not the best, you're not the smartest in your field, or worse, the world will change and your field will instantly become worthless. And now AI does it right, Your body will fail. Your ability to engage, your hobby, your passion, will go away. What about relationships? Many of us define ourselves by our relationships. We're spouse, child, parent, friend, sibling, boyfriend, girlfriend. Don't get me wrong, those things are wonderful. But you gotta know they don't last either.
[00:21:30] Even the best ones don't last. What happens when that person leaves you? They grow up and move out and move on. They hurt you or betray you. They leave you. They make destructive choices. They die.
[00:21:43] Beyond this, I know that in a space like this, many of us don't even have it in us to define our person by these sorts of external things because we're too weighed down by guilt or shame or sorrow or hurt in our own life and our own soul. And we define ourselves by those failures, those weaknesses, those sins, those addictions, those wounds. But, beloved, you must know from the best of the worst things that we use to identify ourselves. You are more than that.
[00:22:11] You are so much more than that.
[00:22:14] You are the beloved of Jesus. You're more than the pleasures and prides you find in this life. You're more than the people you hang out with in this life. You're more than your failures and hurts in this life. You are beloved of God, the apple of his eye, the love of his life. And he will pay a ludicrous price to have you.
[00:22:36] That he loves you that much because you mean that much to Him.
[00:22:43] Back up to our parable, because we can't leave it at that, right?
[00:22:48] So how does the meaning change if we start with not Jesus as the main character, but the church is the main character, what happens if we flip this parable around?
[00:22:57] Well, if we are the main character of the parable and the parable is telling us of the kingdom of God, the gospel of Jesus, our connection to God, that is a treasure worth paying for.
[00:23:09] And I think that's where most of us probably go immediately when we first read the text, right? Oh, yeah, Jesus is telling us he's so good that we should pay the price to have Him. But here's the thing, guys, that's true.
[00:23:23] But Jesus isn't asking you here to just manufacture some kind of magical desire where you have to go, oh, I'm a Christian, so. So this is worth everything. Nothing else in my life matters.
[00:23:35] We start with the truth of the gospel, that God loves you like crazy. And what we find is that Jesus is telling you that his gospel, his kingdom, is so good that once you experience it, you'll want it.
[00:23:52] You won't be manufacturing something out of religious guilt, but you'll actually desire it. That you'll find that it's so good and so satisfying that you'll actually pay the price to have it.
[00:24:05] Whether you're living your life searching for this truth or whether you stumble upon it. Beloved, once you find Jesus, once you encounter the living God, you will want to have him.
[00:24:19] Once you experience Christ, I mean really experience the risen Jesus, you will want him. Because Jesus is just that good.
[00:24:31] The experience is just that wonderful. That's what I'm really getting at today, guys. God is good. He's worth having. He's worth seeking.
[00:24:42] Now, this truth is interesting for us because the scripture says unapologetically that God and his character is all about seeking and fulfilling his own glory.
[00:24:53] God's glorifying himself, I guess, one of his chief goals above all else. Isaiah 42:8 says this. I am the Lord. That is my name. And I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols. We could spend the rest of our time quoting dozens upon dozens of scriptures that talk about God's passion for his own glory, for lifting Himself up.
[00:25:16] And what's interesting is that if a person were like this, they would certainly not be good if you knew someone who was obsessed with their own glory.
[00:25:30] In fact, I'm pretty confident many of us do know people who are all about their own glory, their own fame, their own renown, their own well being, their own pleasure, their own excellence. I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess those aren't your favorite people in life.
[00:25:46] Yeah. In fact, I'm sure in a space like this, many of you have been deeply wounded by folk obsessed with their own glory.
[00:25:54] So how can a good God seek His own glory above all else that seems so counterintuitive to our experience?
[00:26:03] Well, the reality is that God is not a sinful man.
[00:26:08] He's not a sinner like us. And so his glory is not like our sinful glory. See, our wonderful, loving, good God's glory is caught up in our design and our fulfillment.
[00:26:21] This is going to get a little heady for a second, but stick with me here. You have to remember our God is triune the way the Bible describes Him. And I'm not going to go too deep into the theology there, but this is what we talk about, the doctrine of the Trinity. God is three in one. God is Father, God is Son, God is Spirit. It's complex. It doesn't really fully make sense to our human minds, but it's the way the Bible describes God. He is three in one, eternally Father, Son and Spirit, distinct but unified and one. This means practically that God lives in perfect, eternal harmony and community with Himself.
[00:26:59] Right? God is in a perfect, loving, sacrificial community with Himself all the time. He's having a perfect, eternal party with his best friends.
[00:27:10] If this kind of God having a perfect journal party with his best friends is also perfectly loving, as the scripture says, God is love, then what could he possibly do to add to the love and glory he's already fully expressing within the Trinity himself?
[00:27:28] Well, the answer is to invite more folk into the party, right? If God's already having a perfect, loving, eternal party with his best friends Himself, the only way to add to the love is to invite more people to party.
[00:27:41] And so God creates a wonderful universe.
[00:27:44] And part of that universe is populated with a special set apart creature that bears his image that is able to be like him and to live in unity and connection with Him. Us, we're made like him, made to be in perfect relationship with Him. And so God is glorified. His majesty, his love, his wonder is displayed with when more of humanity lives in harmony and intimacy with Him. We were literally made and designed by God to live in perfect, joyful, loving relationship with Him.
[00:28:19] And this brings God glory.
[00:28:21] God has brought more glory when his love is displayed fully. And human beings living into their design of enjoying God and finding their deepest joy and fulfillment forever, which in turn brings God more glory, which in turn draws more people. And it creates this beautiful, wonderful, worship, joyful feedback loop where we find our deepest joy and fulfillment in glorifying God. And God in turn glorifies Himself by loving us and including us in his love, which brings about more joy and starts the cycle over again.
[00:28:52] Full description of heaven. Kind of a long way to get there. That's what it's talking about. The psalmist says it like this in Psalm 16. Therefore my heart is glad. My whole being rejoices. My body also rests securely. For you will not abandon me to Sheol. You will not allow your faithful one to see decay. You reveal the path to life to me, and in your presence is abundant joy. And at your right hand are eternal pleasures.
[00:29:19] It's kind of a weird concept that may not immediately click when you hear it, but you need to know something, beloved. This is your reality in Christ.
[00:29:28] God is most glorified in the gospel grace of loving and saving the likes of you and me.
[00:29:35] This brings him the most glory, loving and saving us and including us in his heaven. And that brings us the most joy a human being can possibly experience. The Christ in the Philippians 2 says it really beautifully says, adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus, who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited. Instead, he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity, that when he had come as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. And because of this, God has glorified Him.
[00:30:14] God's glory is made known in the gospel work of saving us.
[00:30:20] In the wonderful gospel of the Kingdom of God, God is glorified. And you hear me right now, beloved. You, the beloved of God, right here, right now, exactly as you are with all your problems, with all your baggage, regardless of what sins brought you to the foot of cross. God is glorified and you are brought to complete joy.
[00:30:45] That's the gospel promise.
[00:30:48] Corey 10 Boom. The Holocaust survivor said it like this.
[00:30:52] There is no pit so deep that God's love is not deeper still if he was talking about enduring suffering.
[00:31:00] But you need to hear that the love of God is complete and absolute, seeks you out, draws you in. There's nothing in this life more powerful than it. There's nothing you'll experience, no evil, no wrong, no injustice that will somehow outsmart or outpower the love of God and the ability of God to draw you to healing and redemption and eternal joy that exists. And it is available for each and every one of you.
[00:31:28] This is the gospel call to you and to me. Jesus bought you with the price of his very life, and he did it with joy because he longs to have you. He's not reluctant. He doesn't love you out of some sort of obligation or sense of guilt. No. We worship a God who delights in his own glory and glorifies himself in his love and salvation of us.
[00:31:52] The author of Hebrews says it like this. We keep our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer, the perfecter of our faith for the joy that lay before him. Him. He endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. It is joy, love, eager expectation that drew Christ to the cross and draws Christ to you. He's like a merchant who sought out what he wanted and spent what he had to get to get it. Because you are his treasure.
[00:32:23] That, beloved is what you were made for, is where you will find your greatest joy and the greatest fulfillment possible in this life. Jesus is so good that he glorifies himself by displaying his love and grace to you and I. This is real. This is life changing. This is right now.
[00:32:44] This is the kind of joy that roots so deeply in your identity that it survives the suffering of this cursed and broken world.
[00:32:53] The joy of having Jesus is such a wonderful goal that it is worth the cost, the true cost, to trust God and to live in it.
[00:33:04] So what is it about the kingdom of God that makes it a treasure to you that's worth considering?
[00:33:10] I mean, consider that gospel we just talked about. For a moment.
[00:33:14] Think about how immense and grand the love of your God. Actually, I mean, consider your God. Think about him for a moment.
[00:33:22] He's so powerful. He's the king of reality. He holds the universe and yet he considers you. And hear me, guys, doesn't just consider you.
[00:33:32] He's crazy about you. He delights in you with all the mess of contradictions and hypocrisy that's in your heart.
[00:33:42] You with your heart that both loves others and hates others, with your mouth that sings praises and later spits out bitterness and curses. He meets you in your absolute mess. And because of the immensity of his mercy and glory, he makes a way for you to be forgiven. And he isn't even satisfied with just forgiveness.
[00:34:02] No. He moves beyond that and gives you his own righteousness that you might become holy.
[00:34:08] Beloved, God makes you holy and adopts you into his family and treats you as his own child.
[00:34:14] Come on, church. You know when an adoption hearing in the United States, a new birth certificate is issued, even though the kid's already alive.
[00:34:24] And the parents actually have to take an oath before the judge to care for the child. And they use this phrase just as if they were naturally born to you. Just as if they'd been born to you. It's a beautiful ceremony. That's an earthly court. With humans, you have the king of reality who adopts you into his family and treats you like his very own child.
[00:34:46] You've been given full access and full privilege of family. You've been made to persevere so that you can step into your perfect forever with the lover of your soul instead of the lot your mess of sin earns you. You were given the gift of perfect forever living exactly as you were made to work, with complete joy and fulfillment. If that isn't good news, like I don't know what is.
[00:35:10] This is the treasure you found in Jesus. It's everything. It's your life. It's what you were made for. It surpasses anything this world could possibly offer you. So beloved, of course it is worth any price.
[00:35:26] What could you possibly think of in this world that would be worth losing? That.
[00:35:33] That's worth any and every sacrifice.
[00:35:37] So let's bring this all the way back to where we started today.
[00:35:40] God is good and he wants what is best for you.
[00:35:43] We live in a cultural moment that celebrates individual freedom and defines love as pure acceptance and promotion of whatever the object of love wants.
[00:35:52] If I say I love you, then I have to accept whatever you want and I have to help you pursue it no matter what it is. That's what love is. That's not how the Bible defines love. It isn't.
[00:36:02] You're not going to get there. If you try and stamp that onto God, he won't appear loving because he isn't content to just let us live however we want.
[00:36:12] He's not okay with every human being living for their own pleasure and their own desires. In Mind, beloved, our God calls us to a life of obedience and submission to his kingship.
[00:36:23] And so we're left with the truth. This kingdom of God has a cost.
[00:36:28] Our God has ethical structures.
[00:36:31] He expects his children to submit to them.
[00:36:35] I mean, beloved, not to put too fine a point on it, let's say it clearly.
[00:36:42] God expects you to submit your sexuality to him.
[00:36:45] You don't get to sleep around with your boyfriend or girlfriend. You don't get to do that.
[00:36:51] You submit all your sexual expression to a committed, monogamous heterosexual marriage.
[00:36:57] And I'm picking that particular ethic just because. For the shock value. But we could go down any list of them.
[00:37:04] We could pick any Christian ethical stance. Male and female are different. Speech should be kind and uplifting. Stealing is wrong. Government should be submitted to. It's easy to ask why the God of the universe would care about stuff as seemingly insignificant as who you sleep with and how you live your life. But remember, beloved, our God is good and he wants what is best for you.
[00:37:31] It is ludicrous to consider the God of the universe would care how you live your life. That is nuts.
[00:37:39] But it is totally in line with the Bible teaches us about the character of God, that he sees you, he considers you, he cares for you and loves you. And because he loves you, he wants you to live a life that is actually full of joy and abundance. So yes, he does care about the decisions, decisions you make because he designed a good life for you and he wants to move you that direction. He wants to see you full of joy and freedom and fulfillment, not living however the heck you want, being guided by your flesh and your passions and your desires, but actually connected to him.
[00:38:15] And that is nuts to think that Yahweh, who holds black holes in the palm of his hand, who tells the stars where to go in space, cares about your 80 years here on Earth. But he does.
[00:38:30] How wonderful is that?
[00:38:32] That your God considers you.
[00:38:35] That he considers you worth the attention to think about and consider and guide and be moved towards life and fulfillment.
[00:38:44] If you had the kind of power and authority God has, you wouldn't have to think about you and me. And if you did, you could demand whatever the heck you wanted.
[00:38:54] But Yahweh is love.
[00:38:56] And he considers you with compassion and he considers you with love and desire and says, no child, come to me. I have such goodness for you. I have such joy and fulfillment for you. You have no idea how much good I have for you.
[00:39:12] So yes, yes, God cares about how you. Your sexual habits. God cares about Your speech habits. God cares about the ethical stance and actions of your life. God cares about the minutiae of your life.
[00:39:27] God cares about when you have a bad day, when you're annoyed, when you're treated poorly, when you're happy and joyful.
[00:39:36] God delights in you and involves Himself in your life.
[00:39:41] What a privilege, blood. What a privilege.
[00:39:45] So, yes, he calls you to count the cost, to consider it and to pay it.
[00:39:52] To pay the cost of actually submitting your life to him, which really does look like something. It means not living your life, giving over totally to the flesh, doing whatever the heck you want. It's a different kind of life. But here's the thing. Beliat, if you've experienced Jesus, and I say again, I mean really experienced him, then you already know that's worth it.
[00:40:17] You already know that's the life you want to live.
[00:40:21] So what? So what?
[00:40:24] You're going to cast aside some pleasures for 50 to 80 to 90 years?
[00:40:29] You're going to not pursue every little whim of your flesh right now?
[00:40:34] Beloved, how much will that matter to you 14 trillion years into your eternity?
[00:40:40] How much will you think about choosing righteousness and holiness over the pleasures of the flesh when you've been living in perfect, fulfilled eternity with God for trillions upon trillions of years?
[00:40:52] That math doesn't work.
[00:40:55] Of course, the kingdom of God is worth it.
[00:41:02] So it costs you something. Yeah, beloved, count the cost.
[00:41:07] Count the real cost.
[00:41:09] And if you've experienced Christ, I guarantee you will go, oh, that's worth it.
[00:41:14] Abby, if you want to come back up today, I want to invite us all to consider the cost of seeking the kingdom. I want to invite you to take a minute to actually soberly weigh what it means to live a life that actually fights your sin, that actually seeks the glory of God, that fights to die to ourselves, to pour ourselves out to God's glory and the benefit of others.
[00:41:40] It seeks to love God and love others as he has loved us, to walk in the very footsteps of Jesus, to expect to pour out ourselves just as he did.
[00:41:52] I want you to sit and consider that cost genuinely in a moment of prayer.
[00:41:57] But do yourself a favor.
[00:42:00] Don't sit and think about that cost without also soberly reflecting on the gain that Christ has for you.
[00:42:09] You may miss out on this world, but you get Jesus, you get real treasure.
[00:42:17] And beloved, that's worth celebrating.
[00:42:20] So what do you and I today do with this truth?
[00:42:23] Hopefully, when you consider the goodness of God, you smile and you laugh and you give a shout of Praise and an amen.
[00:42:30] The Gospel is such good news that it's cold water on a heart day, on a hot day, it's comfort and love. It's forgiveness and reconciliation. It's life. But you can trust God's character.
[00:42:41] You can trust God's expression of ethics, even in cultural moments that don't align with them.
[00:42:46] And we can do that because we know that fundamentally, God is good and trustworthy.
[00:42:51] So, two thoughts before I invite you to take a moment to pray.
[00:42:55] First and foremost, the question is, have you experienced Jesus?
[00:43:00] Have you genuinely experienced him?
[00:43:03] If you're in this room and you have not, I have wonderful news.
[00:43:08] You are invited to meet with Jesus today.
[00:43:11] He is here for you. Right here, right now. You need not wait.
[00:43:16] Your joyful, wonderful treasure is here for the taking. All you need to do is ask him.
[00:43:22] Lord, let me meet with you. This is my sin. This is what keeps me from you. This is my pride. These are my idols. But I need your forgiveness. And I need you come to Christ with that and see how he responds to you.
[00:43:36] And if you're in this room and you have experienced Christ, I'd invite you to come afresh to him and consider if you are willing to pay the cost to actually have his treasure.
[00:43:45] Is there some area of your life where you're trying to have the world and the kingdom too?
[00:43:51] Is there something you need to engage today? You need to let go of today. You need to confess today to actually submit to Jesus as your Lord.
[00:44:00] I know that may feel like a little death.
[00:44:02] It may feel like stepping away from something you love, something that brings you comfort.
[00:44:07] But the Holy Spirit empowers you and will help you to do that. Your church will walk alongside you and help you to do that.
[00:44:16] And you will find freedom, find that your treasure is better. I'm confident of that because God is good.
[00:44:23] Because he knows what's best for you. You can trust him.
[00:44:27] Beloved, let's take a minute in prayer. Let's connect with the Lord. Let's do work in our own heart as the Lord leads us.
[00:44:35] In just a few moments, we'll continue on with communion.
